Set Up vCenter Authentication

Create vCenter records to perform authenticated mapping and scanning of your ESXi hosts through vCenter. To get started, go to Scans > Authentication > New > VMware > vCenter.

Before you scan the ESXi assets, you need to authenticate with the vCenter credentials in the vCenter record and identify ESXi hosts managed by the vCenter through mappings.

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Which technologies are supported?

For the most current list of supported authentication technologies and the versions that have been certified for VM and PC by record type, please refer to the following article: 

Authentication Technologies Matrix

Login credentials

You'll need a vCenter account with at least Read-Only access to your ESXi hosts. Certain additional privileges are also required.

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vCenter IP addresses

Request a list of vCenter IP addresses from your VMware administrator and include those IPs in the vCenter record.

Target configuration

Update the settings to match your environment.

Communicating with VMware

We establish communication against the vSphere API/VI API (port 443 by default) which is provided by each vCenter host. The vSphere API is a SOAP API used by all vSphere components. Note this is the same API which the VI Client uses to communicate with vCenter hosts. Routing and firewalls between scanner appliances and this API must allow this communication.

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Why use host authentication